Mark McGuire Teams Up with Trouble Books for New LP

Kosmische-influenced experimenters Emeralds are one of the most prolific and exciting bands working today, not just for their material as a band but each member's solo work. Guitarist Mark McGuire treated us to the excellent Living with Yourself LP last year and will soon follow it up with a two-disc retrospective compilation. As if that weren't enough, we recently caught wind of a collaborative album McGuire completed with his fellow Ohio citizens in the duo Trouble Books.

OneThirtyBPM points to "Song for Reinier Lucassen's Sphinx," a track from the upcoming album, and it's definitely a sum of its parts, as McGuire's layered guitar playing collides with a million synthesizers and smoothly harmonized vocals courtesy of Trouble Books.

Speaking to McGuire recently about the release, the guitarist says that was exactly what they were going for. "I have elements of doing vocals, but it's never stuff where I'm singing words. They have kind of the opposite style with their vocals, where there is no reverb or delay and it's really straight signing," McGuire tells Exclaim! "So I feel it's a cool contrast with my style and theirs coming together."

McGuire goes on to add, "A couple of the songs are remixes of my older stuff and others are me adding stuff to their older songs. But there are a few tracks where we got together and made some new stuff. It surprised me, but I like the way it came together. It is a bit more song-based but the music were working with is a style where it's more free and based on textures than pop structures... It's going to be a different style than I've done before, which I think people might be into."

The exact release date of Trouble Books & Mark McGuire is unknown, but it's expected to be out in late May or early June via Bark and Hiss/Wagon. If you want a copy, you'll likely want to keep your eyes peeled over here, as McGuire says the run will likely be limited to 250 copies.